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I don't know why they would care about courting other potential backers when the project is already more then funded, quicker then any other video game has ever been funded, and when the money that is gotten through the Kickstarter will be a fraction of a fraction of the full budget anyway.

Seems like there has been quite a bit of turnabout on this. Not surprising considering how much of this game's narrative has been based around total assumptions. The defensive belligerence certainly subsided a bit - though I'm not sure if being so stand-offish was a smart choice for the community surrounding the game.

Fan: "Well if you don't like it don't fund it, and stop telling me how to spend my money! Sony's paying for it anyway!"

**Suzuki says he actually needs 10 million to make a true open world game, and Sony is offering mostly perfunctory support.**

Fan: "Wait, come back! We still need more money!"

 

[Chezzymann]

So are people changing their minds on this article now that Suzuki said they'll need 10 million for it to be a true open world game and that the majority of funds will come from the fans?

 

[Freshmaker]

So, turns out Yu Suzuki said something interesting about the budget in the Famitsu interview he did:

I read that as (1) negotiations for other funding are ongoing [Sony], e.g. the ink isn't dry, but (2) he doesn't expect to get much more than $2m out of Sony and friends.

If the kickstarter is the majority of the money, that would seem to make the budget much less mysterious.

Well, just to be cynical, I would think that if you raised 2 million in a day, you'd probably want to try to wring that funding source dry. If people think that 2 million is all they need to provide, and that other sources will fund the rest, the drive to donate further to the KS will vanish.

Providing details on how the other funding sources will contribute if they are going to kick in say, 43 million... Is a terrible idea until the KS funding period is no longer active.

Further, there could be reasons outside of that. The more KS money, the more autonomy Yu Suzuki will have most likely.

 

[Callibretto]

Sony is not going to fund 40million into this. Heck I'd be pretty upset if Sony spent that much on Shenmue, a series that I as playstation fan never even got chance to play the first 2 games.

I'd rather they use that money making other game like Wipeout, or Motorstorm or moneyhat Yakuza localization (which they did for Y5, although it'd be nixe to get Y0 as well)

 

[NinjamicWZ]

The defensive belligerence certainly subsided a bit - though I'm not sure if being so stand-offish was a smart choice for the community surrounding the game.

Fan: "Well if you don't like it don't fund it, and stop telling me how to spend my money! Sony's paying for it anyway!"

**Suzuki says he actually needs 10 million to make a true open world game, and Sony is offering mostly perfunctory support.**

Fan: "Wait, come back! We still need more money!"

"Let us make sure it doesn't happen or it won't happen" is a paradox.

 

[beril]

So the headline is that Yu Suzuki isn't talking. But in the article; he talked to polygon, and he said that if he only gets 2M it'll be a small 2M dollar game; yet somehow it's still a mystery and he's not talking about budget?

 

[Ishan]

Sony is not going to fund 40million into this. Heck I'd be pretty upset if Sony spent that much on Shenmue, a series that I as playstation fan never even got chance to play the first 2 games.

I'd rather they use that money making other game like Wipeout, or Motorstorm or moneyhat Yakuza localization (which they did for Y5, although it'd be nixe to get Y0 as well)

This is true as a ps fan I would prefer wipeout or twisted metal or medevil back . Shenmue is understand from a gamer perspective . Bit having said all that . As a huge sony supporter (simple I prefer sony ips like wipeout uc tlou etc) this kickstarter needs to clarify funding goals otherwise it won't ... I'm frankly thinking of putting down 29 cause of how important this is to everyone when I get my pay at the end of the month . But the funding needs to be clarified on this for casual fans who aren't completely brought in ... For example I would put in 10 more if they really needed it and this is a 40 dollars for something in 2017 I probably won't have time to play I'm willing to do 30 this month but 40 with more clarity and this is from someone who doesn't know popsquat about shenmue apart from ppl like it . To me it's 1) something ppl like 2) supporting sony also . And I'll do it but the funding structure has to be more transparent 3) I'll put in money not cause of shenmue but sony willing to back games others won't and I'm willing to put my
Money where my mouth is for that .

 

[Spaghetti]

So the headline is that Yu Suzuki isn't talking. But in the article; he talked to polygon, and he said that if he only gets 2M it'll be a small 2M dollar game; yet somehow it's still a mystery and he's not talking about budget?

welcome to the ben kuchera school of journalism, where you shoot first and ask questions never

 

[Coxswain]

So the headline is that Yu Suzuki isn't talking. But in the article; he talked to polygon, and he said that if he only gets 2M it'll be a small 2M dollar game; yet somehow it's still a mystery and he's not talking about budget?

No; he said "I have funding sources outside Kickstarter that I collected through my company YS Net, and that will combine with the Kickstarter for this project".

As of the time this article was written, he'd given no indication as to the magnitude of those outside funding sources. Note that nobody was asking for some detailed, itemized breakdown; only something like Bloodstained saying "if we make the minimum goal, then our publisher will be providing 90% of the funding", or - as they did eventually say - "The Kickstarter is likely to provide the majority of the funding". He could have, and should have, avoided all of this, by simply telling Polygon the same things he told the Japanese magazine that conducted that other interview, that he told people during the Reddit AMA, etc.

At the time the article was written, they were being pretty cagey about these things, for no real reason (especially confusing when the Japanese magazine interview, which must have taken place before this article was written, contained the same transparency that Polygon was asking for here). It remains perfectly reasonable to have written an article basically saying "Hey, they're being kind of cagey about their budget for no real reason".

 

[JonathanNemo]

Is this article like Magic Eye.

Will I see a better picture if I get my eyes very close up, and pull it away slowly?

 

[beril]

No; he said "I have funding sources outside Kickstarter that I collected through my company YS Net, and that will combine with the Kickstarter for this project".

As of the time this article was written, he'd given no indication as to the magnitude of those outside funding sources. Note that nobody was asking for some detailed, itemized breakdown; only something like Bloodstained saying "if we make the minimum goal, then our publisher will be providing 90% of the funding", or - as they did eventually say - "The Kickstarter is likely to provide the majority of the funding". He could have, and should have, avoided all of this, by simply telling Polygon the same things he told the Japanese magazine that conducted that other interview, that he told people during the Reddit AMA, etc.

At the time the article was written, they were being pretty cagey about these things, for no real reason (especially confusing when the Japanese magazine interview, which must have taken place before this article was written, contained the same transparency that Polygon was asking for here). It remains perfectly reasonable to have written an article basically saying "Hey, they're being kind of cagey about their budget for no real reason".

Yes there's be a bit of outside funding; but there's no reason to expect it to be a real significant amount. This is what Yu Suzuki says in the article:

"At $2 million, it was going to be a story-oriented game, but still fun to play and [something] that people would be satisfied with. But within this 24 hours, we're already over the goal, and so we're going to head into the stretch goals,"

"And you know, we believe that as we go along, I believe it's going to be a very interesting game. But as an open-world game, the more we collect, the more we get funded, the better the game will be. So I'm asking for everybody's help to help make this game so we can make it the best it can be,"

That should make it perfectly clear that the bulk of the funding is coming from the kickstarter; at least for now. Kuchera is pretty much ignoring that and just assumes it will cost way more and that there's a conspiracy to hide the other imaginary 45 million. It's not going to be a 40M dollar game, bringing up the original games budget is just silly

 

[Coxswain]

Yes there's be a bit of outside funding; but there's no reason to expect it to be a real significant amount. This is what Yu Suzuki says in the article:



That should make it perfectly clear that the bulk of the funding is coming from the kickstarter; at least for now. Kuchera is pretty much ignoring that and just assumes it will cost way more and that there's a conspiracy to hide the other imaginary 45 million. It's not going to be a 40M dollar game, bringing up the original games budget is just silly

It wasn't Polygon who brought up the budget of the original games:

Suzuki did say he hopes the budget will be similar to past Shenmue games.

It's hardly 'perfectly clear' what the scope and composition of the game's budget will be, based on the information available as of the writing of the article.

 

[Permanently A]

When we asked whether Sony was providing any funding for the project, we were told that no further questions would be answered on this topic.

Weird, didn't Sony confirm they would be funding? Why would Suzuki refuse to answer this?

 

[CoolCat]

edited

 

[Ishan]

Weird, didn't Sony confirm they would be funding? Why would Suzuki refuse to answer this?

Because assuming sony is Doing marketing and some funding and possibly it's a variable funding depending on ks goals reached no company would ever say hell we don't have clear confirmed figures on sony first party budgets ... You think they'll reveal this ? Having said that given the uproar this has caused if this spreads beyond gaf and polygon say if all major gaming sites start asking multiple questions I'm sure sony and yu's team with give some sort of response

 

[JSR_Cube]

I can't believe we keep still feeding Polygon these days.

 

[Ishan]

Polygon is a huge site and statistically
Doesn't have a anti sony bias ... But obviously
Some writers there do ... It's like when you watch anything from ign from that Ryan macaff guy you take it with a halo bias ... Ppl have biases even big sites ... As long as they aren't consistently factually incorrect the sites are fair game on neogaf imo

 

[airmangataosenai]

The more I think about this, the angrier I get. People rallied hard for this and Polygon and other concern trolls put all their energy into spreading FUD about the campaign out of pure spite. What an awful group of people they are, I'm really sick of their console war bullshit.

This should've been a moment celebrated by everyone in the gaming fanbase regardless of whether you personally enjoyed Shenmue. It proved you don't always have to be a jaded cynic, but I guess the pull is too strong for some with careers in this industry.

 

[KHlover]

So if the majority of funding will indeed come from kickstarter....what kind of Open World will we look at with a measly $10 Mil +x? Even focussing at a single city GTA IV cost roughly $100 Mil. Just like in GTA a huge draw of Shenmue was just how believable the world was. Of course costs can be cut by using a middleware engine and other middleware tools, but the fact remains that building an immersive Open World is pretty expensive since it requires focus on even the tiniest details that otherwise wouldn't be important enough to bother with.

Really interested in how all of this plays out.